


i swear to do no harm

by Oceantail



Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Genre: (of sorts), Angst, Character Study, Gen, Minor Character Death, Whumptober 2020, field medicine, stylistically written using choppy sentences, these ppl are not in a great mindset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27057187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceantail/pseuds/Oceantail
Summary: It was a death sentence to be exhausted out in the middle of nowhere.(english assignment to write a short narrative piece on a character)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948147
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	i swear to do no harm

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober No.20: Field Medicine

It was a death sentence to be exhausted out in the middle of nowhere.

It was nearly sundown. The sun sank down striping the sky with the most glorious blood red.

We reached an open clearing, the trees casting long dark shadows across the floor that match the shadows under our eyes.

We took another step.

There was a man. We blinked. The man was still there.

His arm was draped over a branch, hand almost poetically stretched out as if reaching for the light.

We turned him over.

Curt yelped before stifling the noise. It wasn't a man. The teenager’s face was a scarred mess blood red like the saturated sunset above. A large portion of his left face was burned away, a burn that looked only days old. The peeling skin started at the bridge of his nose and spread across his face, over the eye, down towards the chin, up around to encompass the burned stump of an ear and over the crown of his head.

I felt my hands instinctively dig into my bag to fish out medical supplies. I’m a medic, I could save him, I _could I could I **COULD!**_ A roll of bandages, gauze, tape and burn cream emerged from the bag as I rushed forward but Cross grabbed my arm and pulled me away. He shook his head, so I surrendered. The medical supplies in my hands disappeared.

I blinked again and we were gone.

It was a death sentence to be exhausted out in the middle of nowhere.

We were always exhausted.


End file.
